


The Room I Knew One Afternoon

by DoubleNegative



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: First Time, Jack visits Madison, M/M, New Relationship, Sexual Content, overly poetic sex, talking about feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-18
Updated: 2016-05-18
Packaged: 2018-06-09 03:49:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6888709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoubleNegative/pseuds/DoubleNegative
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack and Eric have done nothing but talk since graduation--and now that they're finally alone together in Madison, it turns out there's more talking left to do. Being able to touch makes it easier.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Room I Knew One Afternoon

Bitty tries to act casual when Coach and Suzanne announce they’re both leaving to help set up for the picnic later, but Jack doesn’t miss the way his eyes widen for just a second.

“Oh,” Bitty says. “Settin’ up in the gym?”

Coach nods. “Just in case. Rain’s supposed to stop by two, but we’ll get the tables up, at any rate.”

“Do you need help?” Bitty asks.

Suzanne shakes her head. “No, you boys stay here. I’m sure Jack’s still tired from that early flight, and besides, he’s a guest. We’re not going to put him to work.”

Bitty grins. “Well, I might. I want to do at least one more pie, and those peaches aren’t gonna to peel themselves.” He hip checks Jack, none too gently, and they both laugh when Jack doesn’t budge. “Professional hockey player, amateur peach peeler.”

“It’s important to think about a post-hockey career,” Jack says, in his best interview deadpan, and follows Bitty into the kitchen. He’s still not much good in the kitchen, but he likes cooking with Bitty, likes the repetitive motions of chopping and kneading and Bitty’s undemanding chatter. He likes the way they move around each other, easy and comfortable in a way Jack has previously only found on the ice.

Jack leans against the counter while Bitty putters, aimless in a way that’s unusual for him. He opens a cabinet door and shuts it without taking anything out, then does the same with the fridge. The front door closes, and Bitty blows out a breath as he turns to face Jack.

“They’re, um. Gonna be gone for awhile,” he says, and the tips of his ears go red.

Jack blinks, and for a moment the sound of his own heartbeat nearly drowns out the patter of the rain against the roof. “So you don’t want to make a pie?” he says. He’s sure he sounds like an idiot, saying that out loud, but he has to be clear on this.

Bitty’s mouth twists a little, but whether it’s amusement or exasperation, Jack can’t tell. “Not at this particular moment, no.”

Jack’s stomach lurches, and that makes absolutely no sense. He tries to cover it with a chirp. “Should I call a doctor? Are you running a fever?”

Bitty crosses the kitchen to stand just in front of him, definitely amused now. “That was weak, Mr. Zimmermann, and you know it.”

Jack just shrugs. Bitty’s standing so close Jack can see the new freckles across his nose. It’s the closest they’ve been to each other since graduation, not counting a brief hug in the airport, and Jack finds himself surprisingly nervous. But Bitty’s nervous too, standing there chewing on his bottom lip, and that—that helps a lot, actually. “Come here,” Jack whispers, and slides his hands over Bitty’s shoulders. Bitty closes the space between them all in a rush, flinging his arms around Jack’s waist and pressing his face against Jack’s chest.

“I _missed_ you,” he says, low and fervent.

Jack nods. “Me too.”

Bitty tilts his head up and brushes their lips together, but he pulls back before Jack can deepen the kiss. “C’mon, let’s go upstairs.”

 

* * *

 

 

Bitty closes the door behind them even though no one’s home, and then leans back against it, staring at Jack with wide eyes. “This is weird,” he says.

Jack stiffens. “We don’t have to—” he starts, panicked.

“No, no, that’s not what I mean,” Bitty says. “It’s just...everything at graduation happened so fast, you know? And we’re only just now getting to see each other again, so it’s still—it still doesn’t feel quite real, I guess.” He smiles nervously. “I keep wanting to pinch myself.”

Jack’s no stranger to walking through life dogged by a strange sense of unreality, so he nods. “Skype helped, for me,” he says. “And I guess it might not have been as much of a shock to me as it was to you.” He pauses; they’ve had this conversation before and he knows they’ll have it again as they find their footing together. “Although it was sort of a shock to me, too. Before I really stopped to think about it.”

Bitty laughs, but it doesn’t sound entirely easy yet. “ _Such_ a shock, good Lord. You don’t do anything halfway, do you?”

He’s just teasing, Jack knows that, but he’s not sure what to say anyway. His cheeks heat and he closes his eyes.

“It’s all right,” Bitty says, and Jack hears him move closer. They’re not touching yet, but they will be soon. It settles him. “I like it. When you do something, you’re all in."

Jack opens his eyes at that. “I am,” he says, letting all the earnestness he possesses bleed into his voice. He knows it’s too soon to say what he really wants to say, but— “Bitty…”

“Yeah,” Bitty says, and closes the last of the distance between them, slipping one hand into Jack’s hair, knocking his hat off in the process. And Jack can take a hint, eventually, so he ducks his head down and their lips meet and—

—and he’s not too proud to admit he’d been replaying their first (and second and third) kiss over and over for weeks, and he thought he had every detail memorized: the texture of Bitty’s lips, of his soft peach-fuzz stubble, of his hair and his hand and his skin, but—

—but no, he really didn’t. This kiss is better by far, richer and brighter and sweeter, than any memory he could summon. Bitty lays his other hand on Jack’s chest, right over his heart, and Jack wonders if Bitty can feel it pounding.

Eventually they break apart, and the hand Bitty’s threaded through Jack’s hair joins the other one to rest against Jack’s chest. Bitty’s lips and cheeks are flushed and pink. He squeezes lightly at Jack’s pecs, then tugs at Jack’s t-shirt. “Can I, um. Can you—”

Jack raises his eyebrows even as he reaches for the hem of his shirt. “I don’t know, Bittle,” he says. “You have definitely never seen me shirtless before. This is a big step.”

Bitty swats at him, grinning. “Chirp, chirp, chirp, all day long,” he says. “Fine, but I'm keeping mine on, too.”

“Oh, well, in that case,” Jack says, and pulls the shirt over his head, tossing it to the side. His mouth waters as Bitty follows suit. Bitty had mentioned, during one of their daily Skype calls, that he’d gotten a lot of new freckles, and he’d heavily implied they weren’t all on his face. The picture that painted kept Jack up at night.

Bitty lets his tank top drop to the floor and stands before Jack a little awkwardly, hands at his sides.

“Hi,” he whispers.

Jack doesn’t bother stopping the smile that spreads across his face. “Hi,” he whispers back, and gathers Bitty into his arms, warm skin against warm skin. He could hold Bitty like this forever, he thinks, he could kiss him for a hundred years and not get bored. But he could do other things, too, and so could Bitty, if his roving hands and soft eager sounds are anything to go by.

Still, four years of friendship with Shitty taught him _something_ , and before he nudges Bitty in the direction of the bed, he pulls back for a moment and waits for Bitty to open his eyes. “Is this okay? I mean, is this what you— we don’t have to—”

Bitty slips his hands from Jack’s waistband and takes him by the arms, his gaze solemnly. “Jack Zimmermann,” he says. “I can guarantee you, there is nothing you can suggest that I’m not interested in doing. Except maybe more checking practice.”

Jack just grins, suddenly giddy, and slips his hands under Bitty’s thighs to pick him up and carry him the few feet to the bed. They collapse onto it in a tangle, giggling, and god, Jack just wants to make Bitty laugh like that forever. It won’t change what a dick he was to Bitty junior year, but it eases his conscience anyway. He’s so distracted, kissing the laughter from Bitty’s mouth, that at first he misses the moment when the laughter fades and Bitty’s hands stop exploring and clutch at his sides instead.

“Hey, hey,” he says. “What’s wrong?” He rolls to the side, and Bitty curls up into him, shaking his head. “I meant it before, we don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.” He rubs a hand down Bitty’s back, over the bumps of his spine and his constellation of new freckles.

Bitty shakes his head but doesn’t look at Jack. “It’s not that,” he says, but doesn’t elaborate.

Jack waits, and keeps stroking along Bitty’s shoulders.

“I meant it too, before. I want this, I want everything, I’m just. I’m afraid I’m going to make things harder for you,” Bitty finally whispers, face pressed into the crook of Jack’s neck, voice muffled by his skin.

Jack shakes his head as emphatically as he can without disturbing Bitty. “You won’t,” he says, and then, because it bears repeating: “You really won’t. I mean. It will be hard, but. It’s always been hard. It was always going to be hard. That’s not—nothing is going to change that. So it’s fine, really.”

“Jack,” Bitty says, on a sniffly sort of chuckle. “That doesn’t actually make me feel better.”

“Oh.” Jack frowns at the ceiling. He’d meant it to be encouraging. It _was_ encouraging. “I just mean… Bitty, my heart stopped. I went to rehab. Most of the media still thinks I did cocaine. And at least half the hockey-watching world is waiting for me to do it all again. So… what can really happen that’s worse than any of that, you know?” Bitty makes a quiet pained noise and Jack tugs him a little closer, brings his other arm up to rest over Bitty’s waist. Beneath his hand, Bitty’s skin is velvet-soft over tense muscle. Jack presses on, determined to find the words that will make Bitty relax against him again. “The thing about rock bottom,” he says, “is that it’s all up from there. Right? And this is so, so much further up than I ever thought I’d get.”

“Okay,” Bitty says, and some of the tension leaks from his muscles. “Okay. I just—Lord, I have wanted you for _so long_ , and I didn’t think it’d ever be mutual, and now that it is… I’m just afraid I’m being selfish, is all.”

“If you’re being selfish, then I am too,” Jack says, and perhaps he managed to get his point through after all. “Making you hide again, and—being busy all the time, and—and everything else. But if it’s both of us being selfish in, I don’t know, compatible ways, maybe it’ll be all right, eh?”

“Eh,” Bitty agrees with a smile in his voice, and maybe they’re in the clear for now. It’ll come up again. Everything always does; no battle ever really ends. Jack learned that a long time ago. But they’ve cleared the first obstacle—that’s something. And Bitty is golden-warm beside him, shifting up onto his elbow to gaze down bright-eyed at Jack, and that’s something, too. Something inside him loosens and he smiles.

“Just you wait,” Jack says. “You’ll be ‘eh’ing unironically before you know it.”

Bitty snorts and rolls his eyes. “The minute I get you saying ‘y’all.’ We’ll see who breaks first, Mr. Zimmermann.” He drops back down to rest his head on Jack’s chest again, but this time it feels different: more confident, somehow. Assured, as though a question has been answered.

Bitty sighs against him, long and low, and brings one hand to rest just above Jack’s belly button, fingers splayed wide. But his stillness lasts for just a moment before his hand drifts further north, over Jack’s abdominals. “I like these,” Bitty says, his tone somewhere between awed and confessional.

Jack tries not to squirm; it is far, far too soon for Bitty to know how ticklish he can be. “Yeah?”

“Mmhmm. And these.” Bitty’s wandering hand reaches Jack’s chest. His fingertips graze the curve of a pectoral, dance idly through the hair there. Jack shivers. “And _these_ ,” Bitty says, and shifts again. Jack has only the briefest warning—just a glimpse of the mischievous spark in Bitty’s eyes—before Bitty’s tongue swirls around Jack’s nipple and everything goes bright for a moment.

 _Oh my god_ , he wants to say, and _yes, please, do that again_. What comes out isn’t any of those things, isn’t even a word at all, but Bitty seems to understand, because he drapes himself further over Jack’s chest to lick at Jack’s right nipple. Jack clutches the comforter and tries not to whimper.

“All right?” Bitty asks. He’s smiling and pink-cheeked, and he looks nervous, but a little smug, too. It’s a good look on Bitty, Jack decides. It might kill him, but it’s a good look.

“Very all right,” Jack assures him. Bitty’s smile broadens; his blush deepens. He shifts again, tilting his face up, and Jack takes the hint, kisses him slow and honey-sweet. Lets his mouth say things he never knows how to put into words, lets everything coiled up tight inside him unfurl.

Outside, the rain beats against the window panes.

On the speakers, a singer croons to his guitar: love and loss, transcendence and toil, and the aching, inexorable weight of the years ahead.

In his bed, Bitty sighs against Jack’s lips, soft and shivery, as Jack runs his hand down the warm smooth sweep of his spine to curve around on his hip. “Come up here?” he asks, nudging a little. There is a moment of fumbling as Bitty repositions himself and then he’s straddling Jack’s hips with the light of discovery in his eyes. He slides his hands back up Jack’s torso and brushes his thumbs over Jack’s nipples as he rocks his hips experimentally. Jack bites his lip.

 _“Oh_ ,” Bitty says, eyes flying wide. “Okay, yes. That works.”

Jack hums in agreement and tugs again at Bitty’s hips, but Bitty doesn’t need the encouragement. He grinds down more confidently and catches his bottom lip between his teeth, while Jack holds tight to his hips and tries to let him take the lead.

Jack realizes he has very little sexual experience as an adult, by choice and by circumstance both. He knows how it all works, of course, and he’s done most of it before, but in many ways he’s still learning what he likes, what he wants, who he even is with a partner.

But he knows immediately that he likes this. Bitty is solid and warmly reassuring on top of him, anchoring him to the bed, to the present. His body, as he flexes and moves, is lithely muscled in a way that makes Jack’s mouth water, now that he’s allowed to appreciate it. From this angle, Jack doesn’t have to worry if Bitty’s enjoying himself because he can see everything: Bitty’s fluttering lashes and red-bitten lips, the flush that’s working its way down his chest, the trail of fine blonde hair leading to his boxers.

His boxers, which are now stretched over his erection, which show a dark spot against the blue fabric, just where the tip of—

Jack wants to see. God, how he wants to see. “Can I?” he asks, plucking at Bitty’s waistband.

“Oh goodness, yes,” Bitty says, and scrambles to get them off. “They’re just getting in the way anyhow.” He’s a little breathless, and Jack’s not sure he’ll ever be able to hear him after a workout without hearing _this_. “And while we’re on the subject…” Bitty palms Jack through his briefs, one eyebrow raised expectantly, and Jack actually blushes and squeezes his eyes shut as he wriggles out of his underwear. There’s no reason to feel shy, but—

Bitty exhales, long and loud. “Jack Laurent Zimmermann,” he says, and his tone is bold but his voice is a little shaky. “Don’t tell me you’re coming over all shy on me now.”

Jack opens one eye. “Not on purpose.”

Bitty’s face softens. “Sweetheart,” he says. “You’ve got nothing to worry about from me. You’re gorgeous. Honestly, I’m the one who should be feeling insecure, if it weren’t really, _really_ obvious that you’re into this.” He wiggles his eyebrows significantly in the direction of Jack’s crotch, and Jack has to laugh.

“I am,” he says. “Into this, I mean. I—yes.”

“Me too,” Bitty says, and leans forward to kiss him.

It’s easier, then, to close his eyes and let instinct and sensation take over. He wraps a hand around both their cocks and Bitty makes a strangled, enthusiastic noise against his mouth. Lube would be nice, but this is fine. This is better than fine. It’s perfect, because Bitty is still on top of him, bare freckled skin and taut muscle, and they’re just—they’re not even kissing now, just gasping helplessly into each other’s mouths, but it’s perfect.

Bitty wraps his hand around Jack’s and comes all over their joined hands just an instant later. He’s wide-eyed again, gasping, and he’s looking at Jack like he’s the best thing Bitty’s ever seen. It would make an incredible photograph, Jack thinks dimly. The sun’s come back out just enough to light Bitty’s blonde hair like a halo; he’s rumpled and flushed and a little sweaty.

Jack is so distracted by Bitty that he comes almost without realizing it’s about to happen. Bitty moans along with him, stroking Jack through it while his hips twitch with the aftershocks. His brown eyes are wide and filled with wonder, and when he raises one messy hand to his mouth and delicately licks a finger, Jack thinks he might die.

And then Bitty makes a face. “Okay,” he says. “That’s… not the best thing I’ve ever tasted.” He immediately looks contrite. “I mean, no offense! It’s not _gross,_ and I still want to, um—”

Jack chuckles. “Bitty. You’re fine. It’s—yeah, it’s okay in the moment, but—no, not exactly delicious.”

Bitty looks him straight in the eye, though he’s blushing bright. “I still want to, though.”

Jack clears his throat. He can’t get it up again, not yet, but— “Okay,” he says, and is surprised at how hoarse his voice sounds. “Yeah, I am okay with that.”

Bitty wipes them off with a handful of tissues instead, and flops down next to Jack.

“You’ve gotta tell me, though,” he says. “If it gets to be too much. Okay? And then we can figure it out.”

“I will,” Jack says. “But it won’t. I mean. Everything is almost always too much, but… you make it easier.”

**Author's Note:**

> I swear, this was originally going to be about a thousand words of overly-emotional sex in a rainstorm (we can blame a Ray La Montagne binge, I think, because Empty gives me such Jack Zimmermann feels) and then it grew... all this other stuff. Mostly EVEN MORE emotions. The title is from Neutral Milk Hotel, "King of Carrot Flowers Pt. 1": _This is the room I knew one afternoon that I could love you, and from above you how I sank into your soul--into that secret place where no one dares to go._ The rest of the song doesn’t really apply, but. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> thank you to [christyimnotred](http://archiveofourown.org/users/christyimnotred/pseuds/christyimnotred) for the beta! And to Ngozi, for creating this awesome world and then letting us play shinny in it.
> 
> You can find me reblogging my way through fandom and yelling about writing at [one thousand hurrahs](http://www.onethousandhurrahs.tumblr.com)


End file.
